Both businesses and companies have flocked to the US' third-largest state over the past year because of its pro-business environment, including a lack of personal-income tax, alongside its sunny climate that made it an alluring place to spend lockdown.
And Palm Beach County , located just north of Miami, has stood out. Elliott Management is planning on moving its headquarters there, Citadel Securities based its trading-floor's COVID bubble at a hotel there, and hundreds of families have relocated to the county. It's a sign of the times. Insider spoke to parties involved in the local economy, including the mayors of Boca Raton and West Palm Beach, to understand what's driving people to move to the area.
The county realized that executives were buying second houses or coming for vacations in Florida, but owned a large business in another state. The BDB isn't the only group actively recruiting businesses to move to the county. West Palm Beach mayor Keith James told Insider that the city had been reaching out to financial-services companies for years β not just in New York but in other Northeast states including Vermont and Connecticut, alongside some companies as far afield as California.
He said the city had been fielding "plenty" of inbound calls, but that it had also launched targeted advertising in the New York, Chicago, and San Francisco markets, including promoting its technology business hub.
The three mayors told Insider they had especially noticed increasing levels of interest from venture capital, private equity, hedge fund, and financial-services companies, feeding into a state-wide trend. Hedge fund Elliott Management is in final-stage talks to move its headquarters from Manhattan to West Palm Beach, while Maryland-based mortgage company New Day USA is leasing 50, square feet of office space as a second headquarters in the city.
